


Midnight Special

by MooseFeels



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, America, Falling In Love, Finn and Rey are Married, Multi, Nurse Finn, Poe is Alone and it's driving him up the wall, Romance, Trucker Poe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6493141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn comes into the hospital for his shift, leaving Rey in bed alone. And it eats him up, to leave her alone and to spend his day at work alone, in this town that's so small and so lonely. Finn and Rey are withering here, suffocating.<br/>Poe comes in like a ray of light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The truck wants to pull from the curve of the road, to crash into the medians and into the woods. Wants to push itself into the forests and desert and cliffs and ocean that surround it. This is what Poe’s truck wants to do, because he drives a machine that’s older than he is and it always needs repairs that he can’t afford. But Poe’s a good driver. Poe’s a damn good driver- in fact, Poe’s never met a single machine he couldn’t make sing somehow. Poe was a good pilot, too.

Still, though, stormy night like this, Poe can’t help but be worried (real worried) about the things this truck wants to do. 

Poe turns the radio up a little louder, against the sound of the rain beating hard against his windshield and windows. He hears the sound of the windshield wipers scraping and thumping against the bottom. Poe has his other radio on, but he’s not paying real attention to it. It’s mostly static right now, anyway.

Poe keeps it on because he can’t help but to imagine that there’s people out there who want to hear from him, even though he’s pretty sure that’s not true, anymore.

He talks to himself, sometimes, on trips like these. 

Not really trips, anymore. More like one trip that hasn’t ended in a few years. 

“Alright, alright,” Poe says, arcing against the shape of the road, and this is the last thing that happens, before the night turns black.

* * *

 

Finn wakes up at four in the morning and showers. He rolls his shoulders and neck under the hot spray of the shower and he sighs, heavily. Tries to let that tight sensation in his chest go loose. He climbs out of the shower and dries off in the bathroom before he slips into his clothes in there, too. Rey’s shift at the factory has her coming home at two, and Finn wouldn’t have her wake up for the world. 

Factory town like this, the graveyard shift is both the most busy and the most requested. He’s only been on staff with the hospital for a few years; he doesn’t have the pull on staff to get a shift that meshes with her schedule. He doesn’t get to see a lot of her, and that kills him. It weighs on her, too, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

Rey doesn’t talk a lot. She does more than she used to, but she’s naturally so taciturn.

He tiptoes out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen, where he brews himself a cup of coffee.

When he opens the fridge, there’s a jar full of oatmeal for him. There’s a note on top of it.  _ Work was terrible, _ it reads.  _ I love you _ .

He peels it off and stuffs it into his shirt pocket. He leaves the car keys hanging on the hook and steers his bike out of the door, down the steps, and into town.

It’s not a long bike ride to the hospital, and he wants to leave the car for Rey. She’s a better driver than him, and he knows that she likes to listen to music on the drive back. It’s farther, than the hospital anyway, and Finn changes in and out of his work clothes unlike Rey, so if he gets wet, it doesn’t really matter.

She’ll be pissed, but Finn would rather she be mad at him and happy at work than for her work day to be longer and harder.

Finn goes on the clock at the hospital at five-thirty and he gets off at noon. Rey’s shift goes from seven to two. 

This job-

This town-

It’s wearing both of them thin. And there wasn’t a lot of them to be spread around to begin with.

Finn locks his bike to the rack in front of the hospital, out of the way of the receiving circle for the emergency vehicles and in clear view of a security camera. He walks into the hospital and into the staff locker room. Pulls on his scrubs and walks into the day ahead of him. 

He’s tired already.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rey rolls over in bed when she hears the door slam, as if Finn believes that she could sleep through him leaving; as if she could sleep in their bed without the warmth of him along her body, along her belly, along her arms. Rey looks at the window, which is still brown from the lamplight and the pre-dawn, the shade of brown night leaking in between the blinds. Every once in a while, Finn will ask her if she wants blackout curtains, so she can sleep better in the day. 

She always smiles, and tells him she sleeps just fine, because Finn gives so much and gives up so much for her (for both of them) and Rey couldn’t ask him for more.

Rey can’t sleep but she’s not ready to get out of bed yet. She watches the space that Finn left empty in their bed, feels like a lost limb the space of him gone there. 

This town is killing Finn and sucking the life out of her but they can’t leave. They can’t, not yet.

Rey lays there. She tries to force herself back into sleeping so she can be awake for when Finn gets back home, so that they can have their hours together before she has to go into work and he has to go to bed. So she can be awake and active and alive and she can make dinner and breakfast for him. 

Cooking is one of a few things Rey was good at before she knew Finn, and it’s one of a few things that she can give him that he didn’t give to her first. 

Finn taught her how to mend a shirt and how to make a bed. He taught her all those things he learned in the military, the things that were absent for her drifting from homeless shelters to benches to foster homes and back. How to drive a car; how to change the oil and change a tire and the brake pads, these things she learned from a book she checked out from the library. 

But Rey has inside her knowledge how to make her mother’s vareniki and her father’s fried pork chops and someone else’s risotto- these things Rey remembers from before the tornado. These memories are things she is glad to give Finn freely, as Finn gives of himself so freely.

Rey talks about the family she barely remembers; this is enough to prevent Finn from missing the people he ran from when he met her, a few years ago now. 

It is strange, in retrospect, that they married each other within days of meeting each other, but Finn made Rey safe that no one else ever had and Rey made Finn feel-

“You made me feel so human,” he’d whispered, late one night. 

She watches the space empty of him for a while, and then she gets up and takes a shower.

* * *

Finn goes room to room to check on everyone, because it’s quiet right now. This is the rhythm of this job; it is strangely quiet here and then it is so loud and so busy and so hard. But Finn finds something to do the whole time he is here, because if he’s not doing something here, why is here? Why isn’t he home, with Rey? 

Finn has made sure that everyone on his floor is well and that everyone has taken a break who needs to and he’s made sure three times that everything that needs to be clean  _ is _ clean, and then a bed comes through and there’s  _ so  _  much to do, but Finn’s here to do it.

“Crash on the highway,” he hears one of the EMT’s say, rolling a bed through. “He’s unresponsive. Truck rolled off the highway and there was a pile up behind. Two crashed watching it happen.”

Finn tucks the information away. Finds the breath and the heartbeat, which means it’s probably a concussion. He has a cut, which has been bandaged partially by the EMTs, and would explain head trauma. 

Finn gets to work.

 


	3. Chapter 3

When Poe wakes up, everything hurts. 

When he was a kid, he fell out of a tree and it knocked the wind from him. He hit the ground so hard he couldn’t breathe for a few minutes. For a long time, it was the most scared he had ever been. It was the most scared he was until he took his flight exam, and then it was the most scared he was until he failed his flight exam. 

Poe’s not scared, really, but he can’t get his thoughts to fall in order because his head feels like someone is crushing him and his shoulder aches all the way up, into his chest. 

“What happened?” He asks, but no one answers. There’s only the steady sound of a heart monitor and the kind of empty buzzing noise of a room he’s not alone in to fill his ears. His head doesn’t so much hurt as it rattles and echoes with totalizing agony. It makes everything in him scream. 

Poe clenches his jaw against it. 

This hurts, more than anything else has, ever.

“Whoah, there,” he hears a gentle voice say. “Whatever’s goin’ on here can’t feel good, mm?” 

Poe then realizes that he hasn’t opened his eyes, and when he does, he is blinded by the low light of the room. He tries to get his eyes to focus, but it’s hard and it feels all wrong.

“What happened?” He repeats, trying to make sense of where he is and what’s happening. 

“You were in a crash,” someone says. “You’re in Washington, in a hospital. We got your ID and insurance from your truck, Mr. Dameron. You were injured but you should be okay with no permanent damage. Just rest, for now.”

“My truck?” He asks, so tired, suddenly. “Is my truck okay?” 

“I don’t know,” the person replies- a man. Poe can’t find him, he’s not sure where he’s looking. “I’ll try to find out, okay?”

“Okay,” Poe says. “Okay.”

The next time he wakes up, everything still hurts but he can focus his eyes. He can wake himself up. 

He’s in a hospital, and by the sun, it’s mid to early afternoon. He’s in a ward with a few other people, their beds spaced further away from him. Nurses in scrubs mill around. 

“My truck,” he says.

“You’re awake,” a nurse says, walking over to his bed. She’s older, with short dark hair around her head. An accent- British, maybe. 

“My truck,” he repeats. “Is it okay? Someone told me they’d check up and see, if it was okay.”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “There will be police, later, who will be able to answer your questions.”

“Police?” He asks, and he feels his heart go too fast in his chest, thud against his ribs like it’s trying to escape. 

“You were in a car wreck, yes?” She asks. “Or a truck wreck, rather. You weren’t the only person to get injured; they have to ensure you weren’t under the influence of anything.”

“Of  _ course I wasn’t _ !” Poe finds himself shouting. 

The nurse raises an eyebrow. “How are your ribs feeling? And your shoulder?” She asks, instead of examining that last statement. 

And like that, the totalizing sensating of that pain, it flares back up, burns into him. 

“I thought it was about time for you to have another dose,” she murmurs. “And you didn’t have an emergency contact-”

“That’s right,” Poe says. 

She sighs, heavily. 

“Would you like to be placed in a private room?” She asks. “Because you haven’t had a loved one here pushing for it, we haven’t placed you in one. The choice is yours.”

Poe looks up at the ceiling. “How long am I in here?” He asks. 

“We have to perform an MRI and we’re still watching you for internal bleeding,” she says. “More than a day.”

“Hell,” Poe murmurs. “Yeah, I’ll go in a private room.”

And he falls asleep, again.


	4. Chapter 4

When Finn gets home, the apartment smells wonderful. Perfect.

Rey- who Finn had to teach how to load a dishwasher and ride a bike and drive a car- is the best cook he’s ever met. It has something to do with her memory; she can recall some things with unsettling clarity. Phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, and holidays- all of these things escape her grasp- but the components of a birthday cake someone made with her when she was four she can recall to every moment. She can remember the precise color of the room she lived in and she can remember her dog’s name. She can’t remember what state they lived in, though, and she can’t remember a single one of their names. 

Finn is confident believing that Rey remembers every meal she ate from birth until the storm, and she spends most of her time away from work faithfully recreating them in the apartment.

“What’s this?” He asks, standing behind her while she pushes something around in oil on the stove. 

“Chicken livers,” she says. “Fried. Going to toss them in oil and vinegar and chilli. Eat it over rice. Can you grab the greens, from the fridge?”   
Finn nods, kissing the back of her neck softly, catching the barest hint of the smell of her.

“How was work?” She asks.

“Crash,” he says. “Along the highway. Big truck and a couple of cars. Everyone lived, though, and after the rush it was mostly quiet. Cook from a place in town cut his finger off, but it should reattach well enough. Couple of kids with beans up their noses.”

“I bought groceries,” she says. “As long as you left me the car, I figured I should use it.”

Finn can’t fight the smile. “Rey-”

“Finn, you work  _ hard _ , all day,” she says. She leans backward, turning the stove off. 

“Baby-” 

She looks at him, face stern.

“Rey, you work hard, too,” he says. “And you make dinner and breakfast.” He sighs. “You’re gonna take the car today, babe. I don’t need it, not while I’m asleep, especially if you already did the groceries.”

Rey sighs. She dumps the plate full of fried livers into a bowl full of what’s presumably the oil and vinegar, tosses them. “They want to start cutting hours, at the plant,” she says. 

Finn feels his heart sink fully. There’s not a lot of work for her- she doesn’t even have a GED. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “We can go to another city, if we need to- wherever there’s a hospital, they’ll take me, you know that.”

“Moving is so expensive,” she says. Her brow furrows heavily. She pulls a lid off of a pot of rice. 

Finn pulls salad dressing from the fridge. “We don’t have the money to leave; there’s the car payment and the insurance and the rent and groceries.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, and he reaches out, to hold her arms in his hands, facing her toward him. He looks at her, at her wide, serious eyes and worried features. 

This town-

This place-

“We’ll figure it out,” he says again.

Rey sighs. She leans forward, resting her head on his chest. She’s shorter than him, but Finn knows absolutely that she is so much stronger. 

“I’m hungry,” she says. 

“Let’s eat,” he replies. 

* * *

Poe wakes up and falls asleep, a lot.

He wasn’t   _ under the influence _ when he crashed. Poe has never, in his life, directed any vehicle less than stone-cold sober. Poe has spent a remarkable amount of his life with nothing stronger than pepto bismol in his system because of it. 

But he was  _ tired _ . Few months of four-hour nights would do that and now, between the injuries and whatever cocktail of drugs they have him on, he’s not staying awake super well. 

But here he is, six in the morning and more completely awake than he’s ever been, alone in the room. 

He’d turn on the television, but he doesn’t know any of the shows. Reading hurts his head. He wishes, nebulously, that he had his tapes with him. 

He still can’t figure out what happened to his truck. 

His door opens, suddenly, and a nurse walks in. Young man. Black. Wide eyes but an absent expression until he looks up and sees Poe. 

“Oh!” He says. “Sorry- I didn’t realize you’d be up.”

“Me neither,” Poe says, grinning. 

_ Old habits, _ he thinks to himself.

The nurse, smiles, disarmingly. It’s remarkably warm, like something Poe would expect to see from an actual friend and not some man he’s just met. “I’ve been trying to find out what happened to your truck, but the police haven’t been by yet and they’re the ones that would know. The EMT’s didn’t keep track of it.”

“Fuck,” Poe swears, under his breath. “Well, do you know how much longer I’ve got to stay here.”

The nurse pulls his chart from the foot of his bed. He flips through it. 

“We don’t have anyone to release you to,” he says. “And you don’t have anywhere to stay. And if you’ve got a private room, chances are you have the money to cover it.” He frowns. “Have you had your MRI yet?”

Poe shrugs. “They keep telling me that I’ll get it after the police talk to me. But I get if they’re reluctant to talk to me.”

He doesn’t mention why they might actually be  _ eager _ to talk to him.

“No,” the nurse says. “No, this is strange. Our department is usually quite...eager.”

There’s an uncomfortable kind of weight behind the statement. An experience. 

There’s a knock on the door, and another nurse sticks her head in. “The police are here,” she says. “To speak with Mr. Dameron.”

“Speak of the devil,” the nurse with Poe’s chart says. 

“And he shall appear,” a man replies as he steps into the room. Tall- taller than both of the nurses and Poe, too. “Finn,” he says, to the first nurse.

“Officer Ren,” the nurse replies, and he leaves.

And it’s Poe and this tall, tall man left in the room. 

Dark hair. Narrow, large features on his broad face. His hair is longer than Poe would expect on a police officer, but stranger things have happened. 

“I don’t want trouble,” Poe says. 

“I would suspect not,” the officer says, his voice deliberate. Uncomfortable. “I would have gotten here earlier, but I spent most of yesterday fielding phone calls from assorted federal agencies.”

“That was a long time ago,” Poe says.

The officer raises an eyebrow. 

"Listen," Poe says. "I'm not interested in your local dick measuring or whatever this is. I've never driven or operated  _any_ vehicle while less than a hundred percent sober. It was raining, the roads are narrow and my rig is practically an antique. This is why I have insurance. How about you stop acting like you caught me in the midst of some mortal sin and tell me what happened to my truck so I can get back on the road."

The officer looks away, around the room. At the lack of personal effects, at the turned off television. 

Poe hates this. Between his ribs and his collarbone, he can't sit up, much less stand. Hates the way this pig acts like he owns the place; like he owns  _him_. 

"Your truck was destroyed," he says. "We are still investigating. Don't leave town, Command- Mister Dameron. Welcome to Empire."

And he leaves. 

"Fuck," Poe sighs. 

It's only half about the truck.


	5. Chapter 5

Rey stands in front of a drill press all day and pushes holes into sheets of steel that are passed along the line to be attached to other sheets of metal. When there’s enough metal assembled together, they are shipped across the country and sold as boats. This is what Rey does, for eight hour shifts with a half-hour lunch break in between. It’s loud, but they give her headphones. It’s physically demanding but it keeps a roof over her head -- nothing was more physically demanding than sleeping rough. It’s mind-numbingly repetitive and dull but the boredom of the job is better than the excitement that preceded it. 

This is what Rey does, all day, every day. No days off because she’s paid by the hour. No days sick because she doesn’t have insurance.

Rey drives into work and parks in the lot. She grabs her lunchpail -- a stacked set of metal containers that together look like a rocketship, a Christmas gift from Finn last year -- and she walks into the factory. Grabs her punchcard when she hears someone say, “Rey.”

And her heart skips a beat.

Her supervisor, she sees him every day. He’s a pink, sweaty man, like he’s been greased and left to scorch in the sun for a long time. He’s taller than her, but a lot of people are. Completely bald- no eyebrows, even. 

“Mr. Plutt,” she says. She tries to keep her voice even and unafraid. 

“I believe we need to talk,” he says. His voice is deep, like his whole body is a resonating chamber.

* * *

 

Finn’s phone rings and he wakes up immediately. His heartbeat speeds terribly, leaves him jittering and shaking. The only people with his number are Rey and his boss and Rey’s boss. And it’s the number from her work. There are accidents. Finn has had to care for the people who come in with more than just their fingers torn off. 

“Hello,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady and clear of any kind of shake.

“Finn,” he hears, and it’s Rey. And she’s crying. It’s Rey and she’s crying- it’s Rey.

“What’s wrong?” He asks. “What’s-”   
“My job,” she says. “My contract, either they gave me a...a fifteen cent raise or they had to let me go and hire someone else and-”   
“It’s okay,” Finn says. “Where are you?” 

“The office,” she says. “I’m calming down before I drive home.”

“Okay,” Finn says. “Okay.”

“I’ll drive home soon,” she says. 

“It will be okay,” Finn says. I promise. I swear it.”

“I don’t...I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she says, into the phone, softly.

“We’ll survive,” Finn answers. “What we’ve always done.”

And she hangs up. And Finn looks at his hands, at the phone. 

They have seven hundred dollars in savings, which will cover next month’s rent and a few weeks of groceries, if they go on beans and can stretch the eggs. There’s plenty of rice in the pantry and if they’re careful they can make do of the milk. 

They always have to be so careful, but this is how they live. This is how Finn has lived since he left and came here, instead. 

What about gas?

“Figure it out,” he says. “You’ll figure it out.”

Maybe pick up a few extra shifts at the hospital. 

Figure it out. 

He gets up and scrubs his hand over his face. Makes the bed. Goes to the kitchen and turns the kettle on, for tea. Rey finds this comforting, the tea. Something she remembers, from before.

“Figure it out,” he murmurs. 

Finn’s not going to let Rey be without a roof over her head.

He picks up the phone. Dials the hospital.

“Kalonia,” she answers.

“Major,” he says. “Do you have an extra shift for me? I can come in in an hour.”

“You just went off clock and you’re heading back on in...six hours,” she says. 

“I got off four hours ago,” he answers. “What about later in the week? I’m desperate. Put me on a double.”

She tuts a few times, on the line. “I’ll see what I can manage,” she replies. “I can’t promise miracle. Maybe not doubles but I could certainly bump you to ten hours on a few days.”

“You’ve saved me,” he says. “Rey- the factory-”

“They’re considering closing it,” she says. “She’s just the first. Lean times are coming.”

“What will replace it?” He asks.

“If we’re lucky, anything,” she says. “But towns always need nurses. I’ll try to up your hours. Come in at your regular time today.”

And she hangs up. 

Five minutes later, Rey comes into the house, her face red and puffy from crying and her eyesbloodshot.

Pours her a cup of tea while she sits down, on the couch they bought from the goodwill. 

“Kalonia can give me more hours at the hospital,” he says. “And we have savings. Things will be a little lean, but we can figure it out while you look, okay? Or we can looks somewhere else -- everywhere has hospitals, Rey and I can go- we can go whereever we need to.”

Rey nods. Holds the tea in her hands. 

She only lets herself be vulnerable like this when she’s with him. 

“We’ll be okay,” he says. 

She nods. 

“We’ll be okay,” Finn repeats, telling himself as much as he’s telling her.


	6. Chapter 6

“What’s the deal with the local police?” The man asks him, as Finn comes into the room. 

Finn looks up from the papers, to the man. 

He looks pale, under the hospital lights. His skin is deeply tanned, presumably through the windshield of the truck, but he’s also not white -- Finn can see the tanlines around the collar of the hospital gown and on his wrist where a watch must have been, and he can see the color there, golden. But his skin has a cast under the lights, away from the daylight. They make him look washed out, and unwell. His hair is greasy -- he probably hasn’t showered in a few days. He looks rough, like sleeping on the road has been getting to him as much as sleeping in this hospital.

Finn shakes his head, looking down at the table as he lays out the food and medicine. Basic painkiller and antibiotic. He bites his lip for a moment, thinking of the right thing to say. 

“Keep out of their way,” he says, finally. “Just keep your head down.”

The guys rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “sure. I’m not already on that asshole’s weird hit list.”

Finn finds himself smile reflexively. “I’ve got some medications for you and some food,” he says, by way of a non-answer.

He’s not anxious to not talk about his background with the law here.

“When can I get out of here?” He asks.

“We can’t discharge you without someone to care for you,” he says. “Your shoulder is shattered and your ribs -- and where would you  _ go _ ?”

“You can’t keep me here,” he says. “I’m not your  _ prisoner _ .”

There’s a bite to the word. Like maybe someone else thought that he was their prisoner. 

“Where would you sleep?” Finn asks.

“Find a motel,” he says. “I’ve done it before. I fucked up my shoulder; I’m not  _ helpless _ .”

Finn looks at him. 

A stranger.

“I know you’re not helpless but are you going to do this alone?” He asks. “Is it smart to do this alone?”

“I’ve never done a smart thing in my goddamn life,” he says. His eyes are dark and serious, his brow furrowed. 

“I can start on your discharge paperwork,” Finn says. “And we can set you up with a prescription for the rest of your round of antibiotics and a painkiller for while you heal, although they’re going ot be reluctant to fill it for you because you’re--”

“Because I’m  _ what _ ?” He asks, that edge back.

“Because you make your living on the road,” Finn continues. “People die when truck drivers on drugs-- prescriptions included-- hit the road for long hours.” Finn sighs. Looks at him. “I get that every hour you’re not on the road is money lost and I get that everyone is hurting for money, but is it really smart to try to head out before you’re healed? Don’t you have a home base or something to go back to?”

The guy sighs. “My truck is my home base,” he says. 

He looks at Finn, his brown eyes absolute and intense. “What’s your name?” He asks.

“Finn,” he answers.

“I’m Poe,” he says. “Listen, I can’t -- Finn, I can’t stay here. I can’t get in trouble, I can’t afford attention from the law. I can’t; it’ll put so much into jeopardy and I can’t-”

“What do you need?” Finn asks.

Poe looks at him. “I need to get out of this hospital. I need you to put me at a place to stay for a few nights until I can get my truck fixed and back on the road. Put me in contact with a good mechanic and I’ll be fine.”

Finn looks at him -- perfect stranger. 

“I think,” he says. “We might be able to help each other.”

* * *

 

The nurse gets him out within the next six hours, and Poe has never been so grateful to be physically exhausted by the act of moving, at all.

The nurse -- Finn-- helps him into an old volvo that smells like mildew and spent oil and sweat. He jams the key into the ignition and it sputters for a hard minute before it catches and the engine roars to life. 

They drive away from the hospital, and in the afternoon light, it looks somehow stranger and flatter and sadder than it did at night, in the rain. 

“Are you from here?” Poe asks.

Finn doesn’t answer for a long moment, as the roll through a stoplight, drive past a new street full of the same, newly constructed but strangely empty houses. 

“No,” Finn says. “We moved here, my wife and I.”

“You’re married?” Poe asks.

Finn nods. “Rey,” he says. “You’ll meet her. She’s..she’s incredible.” His voice is full, deep with something, something like love but more deep. “Everyone loves her. She’s incredible.”

“How long have you been together?” He asks.

“Uh..,” Finn says. “Uh...about...three years? We married...two and a half years ago or so.”

Poe feels his eyebrows rise reflexively, and pushes them back down. Not his place to judge. Not his place to ask.

“What brought you here?” Poe asks, instead of pushing against the suddenness of the marriage or the short time together.

“California was...the farthest place we could think of,” he says. 

They’re silent, the rest of the drive home.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey looks at him for a long, steady moment before she says, “You didn’t tell me we’d have guests.”

Finn tries not to wince at that as he helps Poe through the door, careful of his cast and bandages. “It’s uh,” he says, “it’s kind of different from that, actually.”

He just barely catches the shift in her face from a sort of unimpressed disappointment to a schooled neutral. 

“Rey, this is Poe,” he says. “He’s going to be staying with us for a few days. Renting the couch.”

Rey’s face goes from neutral to  _ stern _ suddenly, and he voice drops out of English into the rapid and sibilant Ukrainian she grew up with, a language that Finn can’t get the hang of. God knows he’s tried, listened to her for hours and listened to tapes and read books. He’s tried. He’s tried. 

Rey trusts him with her emotions, even in these moments that she has trouble expressing them. And that trust is so important to him. It’s important that she doesn’t shut him out. This is important, that he doesn’t abuse that trust. 

He helps Poe get to the couch. “Rey-”

She points to their bedroom, taking a deep breath, and Finn  _ practically slinks  _ into the small space.

-

Finn’s wife is a short, young woman with long brown hair tied back in a series of unusual buns. She has deeply freckled skin and a body that looks deceptively muscular -- in the mere moments she was in the room with him, he saw the shape of her arms under her short sleeved-shirt. She has serious features and a serious voice and a remarkable grasp of Ukrainian. 

Poe knows a little of it, from his time on base. The general spoke it, filtered in and out of it with the repair crews.

Poe knows enough to know that some of what Finn’s wife said included the word “stranger” and “poor.”

He can hear their hushed voices from the bedroom- Finn consoling and her-

Panic. 

“Rey,” he hears Finn say. “Rey-” And then hushed murmuring, and then, finally, “I  _ promise.” _

A string of Ukrainian in response, something Poe doesn’t know.

* * *

Finn looks at her. 

“Finn,” she says, her voice schooled carefully and calmly. “Finn, this is our home.”

“He’s going to pay,” he says. “And I know we need the money and-”

She slips into Ukrainian again, for a few seconds before she closes her eyes and says softly, “He’s a stranger, Finn. He’s a stranger in our home, do we really need to...are we in so much trouble?”

Fin looks at her. He reaches out, carefully, to take her hands in his. Her strong hands, calloused from work. She leans forward, and he does too, They rest against each other, for a moment. Resting. 

“I don’t want us to be in trouble,” he says. “He needs a place to stay. We need the money. He wants to pay. Few hundred extra dollars could help us keep the lights on for a few more weeks or might help get us out of town sooner.”

She looks at him. Closes her eyes. “I won’t be hurt,” she says.

“You won’t be,” Finn repeats. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

And she trusts him to that. She trusts him to be strong for her. 

Rey’s trust means more to him than anything else he has ever had. 

“If you don’t want him here, I will drive him to a hotel myself,” he says.

“I trust you,” she says. 

“Thank you,” he answers.

Finn doesn’t quite catch, what it is she says next. A string of Ukrainian, a thing she says sometimes. The syllables roll together, the most natural thing on earth to her.

He loves her so much; he would do anything for her, and he lives his life hoping she knows that.

* * *

Poe tries to look casual on the couch, when the door opens again.

“My name is Rey,” she says. “Welcome to our home.”   
He extends his hand forward. “Poe Dameron,” he says. “I just need somewhere to be for a few days, I promise, and I’m paying the rate I’d get at the hotel. I’m very, very clean.”   
She doesn’t smile, but her expression does lose some tension. “Are you hungry?” She asks.


	8. Chapter 8

“I have to go into work,” Finn says, laying in bed, looking at her. Looking at Rey. Her hair has come loose in her sleep, and it floats at soft wisps around her, framing her bright, big eyes. 

Her eyes find him, always, like ships find harbor. 

“What?” She says, her voice is sleep rough. “No, it’s too early-”

“Kalonia got me some OT,” he says. “And a couple of longer shifts, just so we can keep up the work while you’re looking.”

“It’s so early,” She says. “I barely saw you at all before bed. It’s three, Finn. It’s  _ barely  _ three, Finn.”

“I know,” Finn answers. “I know. But I just -- we need to keep the lights on and I want to build up a buffer, just a bit. I promise. And after we get some more money together”

“Okay,” she says, and she scoots forward, all the way into Finn’s personal space and kisses him, softly. “I love you.”

“I know,” he replies. 

He rolls out of bed. Stretches a little, trying to shake the soreness out of his shoulders and back. 

His back still gives him a twinge, every once in a while. 

He wakes up and gets ready for work.

* * *

 

Rey falls back asleep slowly after Finn leaves. She wakes up two hours after he goes, her eyes fluttering open as the sun rises slowing at the top of five am. She lays in bed and lets its slow light filter into the bedroom, make what was brown from light pollution grey in early dawn.

She sits up and brushes the hair that fell out of her bun in her sleep from her face. She walks out of the bedroom and into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee.

And there’s the man, in her kitchen. 

Poe, the man that Finn met in the hospital, who’s paying to sleep on their couch, who has some broken bones and a heavy cut over his eye. He’s brushing his teeth in front of the sink and his dark hair is a mess. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, after spitting out into the sink. “I didn’t want to wake you and my mouth taste like the hospital.”

“Do you have to pee?” She asks.

He shrugs. “Yeah,” he answers.

“Bathroom is through the bedroom. It’s...it’s the one that’s a bathroom,” she says. “I’m making coffee.”

He shuffles off, moving slowly whether due to his injury or to having just woken up, Rey is unsure. She pulls the coffee canister out of the freezer and pushes a few tablespoons into the machine. She pulls a couple of eggs out of the fridge and some milk. Puts a pan on the stove and heats it up. 

She’s got the eggs in the oil when Poe comes out of the bathroom, still a little slow.

“Are you hungry?” She asks.

He smiles a little. “I’m uh- I’m fine,” he says. “I’ll probably hobble into town in a couple of hours and find something-”

“I’m making eggs,” she says. “It’s no trouble; I can throw some on for you as well.”

“I’m uh- I’m a vegan, actually,” he says, flushing a little. “I’m sorry.”

She looks at him, and she tries to keep herself from frowning, that  _ thing _ her face does when she doesn’t understand something. “What is this?” She asks. “What does this mean?”

“Uh,” he says, wincing a little. He stands outside the kitchen, leaving the opening available to her. “I don’t eat animal products. Meat, milk, eggs, butter, cheese-- some people eat honey, but I don’t.”

She feels that information filter through her brain, slowly. “Any of these things?” She asks. “Why?” She looks around the corner, around the cabinets and the counter to see him, where he sits in a chair looking embarrassed.    
“My parents didn’t,” he says. “I grew up with it. They were really into self-sufficiency and it was easier and less expensive than doing livestock and there was also this whole like...ethical thing. So I don’t have the germs in me that can digest the stuff and I’m more than likely lactose intolerant anyway so mostly I just eat a lot of beans and salads and carrot sticks.” He smiles, roguish. “I was planning on sneaking out to the grocery store and grabbing some tofu or something; I know it can be inconvenient for other people.”

She pulls the eggs, cooked now, off heat. 

“Black coffee okay?” She asks.

He nods. She pours two cups and walks into the living room with everything. Hands him the coffee. 

“When Finn gets off shift, I can get some things, if you write what you want down,” she says. “You can’t walk to the store. It’s miles away and you’re still hurt.”

“You sound like your husband,” he says. He takes a sip of the coffee. 

“He is very kind,” she says. “A good man. A very good man.”   
“How did you meet?” He asks, his voice easy and inviting.

“It’s a long story,” Rey says. This is what Rey says when anyone other than Finn asks her something about where she’s from or where she’s going or what she ran from. People don’t want to hear about the foster homes or the times between foster homes or the time sleeping rough. They want a cute story with a happy ending. 

The story has a happy ending but it’s not cute. 

“I’ve got plenty of time,” Poe says. “Unless you have somewhere to be or something -- sorry if I’m being invasive, sorry.”

“He almost hit me with his car,” she says. “I was sleeping under the bridge, it was raining. He was in a hurry and didn’t see me. He almost killed me.”

“Oh,” Poe says. “Damn, that’s an intense one.” He looks up at the ceiling. “I knew a lady-- she met her husband when he accidentally broke her out of jail. LIke, physically. Lockpicks were involved.”

Rey feels a laugh escape, despite herself, and Poe’s entire face lights up, like he’s won something, like he’s figured something out. 

“God’s own truth,” he says, making a cross over his heart. “Leia and Han, in New York, in the seventies. Different time, I guess. Still, weird or shitty meeting is better than never meeting at all, eh?”

Rey nods. “Yes,” she replies. She eats some of her eggs and Poe drinks some coffee. 

“Do you need to shower?” She asks. “Or do laundry?”

“Yeah,” he says. “A shower would be great.”

* * *

She gives him a good towel and shuts the bathroom door.

Poe pulls off his shirt and pants and underwear carefully. He peels off the bandages on his chest and sides, shiny with ointment and red with injury. He does all this and then realizes that this thing they’ve put his left arm and shoulder in, this he will need help getting in and out of. It’s not actually a  _ cast _ \-- Finn called it an “immobilizer.” Apparently it wasn’t quite a break but it was almost very, very bad. 

He frowns at it and works carefully with his right hand to pull the velcro straps gently loose. His shoulder and arm, they simultaneously ache and relax from the movement. He sets it aside, where it won’t get wet and steps carefully into the shower. Using his right hand, he turns on the spray. 

It takes a few minutes to heat up, and once it does, it feels so good. Makes him feel human again.

Rey laughed when he told her about Han and Leia. More on reflex, than anything, but it’s a good story, even if he doesn’t talk to them anymore. Or really about them. 

Rey laughed and her whole face lit up, right when Poe was  _ sure _ that he was fucked, that he had fucked up talking to her ever. 

His damn diet does more to make his social life a pain in the ass than anything else.

He sighs, heavily, and lets the warm water pull away the feeling and sensation of being in the hospital. Of being sick or being injured. 

He sighs. 

Gotta figure out what happened to the truck. Gotta get back on the road.

But now, he’s going to wash his hair with a near-stranger’s shampoo.


End file.
